Land Where Blues Began New edition

Lomax's account of African American oral traditions provides information on such legendary bluesmen as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Son House.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a rollicking memoir of the legendary folklorist's journey into blues country, with a new companion CD from Rounder Records. In an exciting new collaboration, The New Press, Rounder Records, and the Alan Lomax Archive present an unprecedented opportunity to explore the history of the blues. The innovative book-and-CD set combines Lomax's award-winning The Land Where the Blues Began, along with a specially produced companion compact disc containing blues masterpieces. The Land Where the Blues Began is Lomax's "singingly well-written cornbread-and-moonshine odyssey" (Kirkus Reviews) across America's musical heartland. Through candid conversations with bluesmen and vivid, firsthand accounts of the landscape where their music was born, Lomax's "discerning reconstructions...give life to a domain most of us can never know...one that summons us with an oddly familiar sensation of reverence and dread" (The New York Times Book Review).
A self-described song-hunter,” the folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930’s and 40s, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta’s music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues began, Lomax gave voice to such greats as Leadbelly, Fred MacDowell, Muddy Waters, and many others, all of whom made their debut recordings with him.The Land Where the Blues Began is Lomax’s stingingly well-written cornbread-and-moonshine odyssey” (Kirkus Reviews) through America’s musical heartland. Through candid conversations with bluesmen and vivid, firsthand accounts of the landscape where their music was born, Lomax’s discerning reconstructions . . . give life to a domain most of us can never know . . . one that summons us with an oddly familiar sensation of reverence and dread” (The New York Times Book Review).The Land Where the Blues Began captures the irrepressible energy of soul of people who changed American musical history.Winner of the 1993 National Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, The Land Where the Blues Began is now available in a handsome new paperback edition.